Five Signs That Sony is In Trouble This Holiday Season

"At first glance, it would almost seem like Sony’s on a roll. They announced a new super-slim model of their PlayStation 3 system for the holiday season, along with exclusive content for Assassin’s Creed III and some new projects for the PlayStation Vita. But that said, you still can’t help but notice little cracks that indicate something is wrong beneath the surface. As much as we like Sony and the stuff that they’re working on for 2012 and 2013, we can’t help but think they’ve made a few mistakes, and this holiday season, those mistakes are more than likely to show, whether it’s the lack of marketing or a decision revolving around hardware. Sorry, Sony, but here are five indications that you might have a problem come Christmas time…"

It's not just about the gamers though its about saving the company so they exist. If they die every playstation gamer loses. Kinda in a pickle if you ask me. If they had The Last of Us ready for holiday release they'd been in much better shape. That was their heavy hitter.

Probably wouldn't care much about gaming all together anymore to be honest. Nintendo is for Kids and I have no interest in anything Mario. microsoft charges for anything online and is mainly focused on Kinect crap now... So yeah, it would be a lost for me and the gaming community.

@Army_of_Darkness I trust then that you are not a real "hardcore" gamer? Losing interest in gaming just because a company leaves the market is a sad reason to quit one of your hobbies or passions, there have been a few that have come and gone and eventually what we currently have will too. I used to be an avid Sega fanatic, but I had to learn to embrace the others and get over my fan type nature.

Each console and company offers a unique take on gaming and most games are multiplatform now days anyway. Sony does have some nice exclusives but nothing worth quitting being a gamer if they dissapeared. The studios would move on, the ones run by Sony would move elsewhere and the 2nd parties would join other camps, just like what happened with Sega and Atari etc.

Sony may not go third party since they have other divisions they would go back to, but their former studios would. So you wouldn't lose the games, just a brand name. Silly thing to quit gaming over.

Another day and another "Sony is DOOMED!!!" article. We just had two articles where one laid off employee was bad-mouthing Sony and another where it was claimed Sony was in more trouble than it seems. It is the easy way and sure-fire way to get hits for your website.I clicked on the link just to see what "cracks" Sony had and none of the reasons were big or significant. Just trying to get hits and I regret giving them one.

This "Sony is in Trouble" BS is getting old. It was old in 2007. Haters and their predictions were proved wrong the last 4 or 5 years. It has been just long enough for them to forget how wrong they were.

Sony isn't the same leader they once were but dont count them out. I remember when Apple almost died. Look where they are now. Sony isnt as bad off as armchair analysts would have you think.

I'm in the same boat with Army of Darkness but for different reasons; biggest is PlayStation is what convinced me Nintendo had to step their game up back in the N64 days - Yes I was a big Goldeneye/Mario Kart 64 junkie however over time I saw certain games PS was releasing that made me think twice about the N64 for the long haul. I also overlooked Sega Saturn only because at the time Dreamcast was announced; and I did give the original Xbox a fair chance however the choice of "my" gaming preference was still on the PlayStation brand.

I'm more of a "retro gamer" since I prefer the older games and systems - before online, DLC, trophies/achievements, and internet persuasion; if Sony was to drop the PS brand yes I would give up gaming for the "future" but I would still keep all the classics as a way to remind myself what gaming was like back during the golden era.

I do have high hopes something can be done to secure the future of PlayStation at least.

This is coming from a playstation fan site. This holds a little more water but its no secret sony is in alot of trouble. For the people mentioning Apples trouble are forgetting to mention that it was microsoft who bailed apple out.

@ Jazz4108- If you look carefully around the site, & look at the author's info, this is clearly someone from PlanetXbox360, just happens they made a new PS only site, & very obvious what they are by posting a 360 controller.. Not surprised by that since that site being posting PS news & articles on their own Xbox site.

Not surprised they would come with an article like that, & they always point fingers at everything Sony does, so basically, it's for the most part a 360 fan site undercover.

@Tenko - It's not a silly reason to quit gaming if the other alternatives offer you nothing you're interested in. Sure, Sony's studios will move elsewhere and make more games, but I won't buy a console hoping that the games I want to play will be on it eventually. MS and Nintendo show me no sign that we are on the same gaming wavelength. Until they do, Sony is the only game in town for me.

Sometimes gamers hate Sony for not splurging cash on ads like M$ & Nintendo does but IMHO Sony knows core gamers know much better than flashy ads on Tv. Real gamers research and look for games they want and are opinionated unlike casuals and soccer moms.

I agree with 1 and 4. I think the vita gets alot of marketing.Not really alot of commercial time.But I see Vita ads in alot of sporting events.They could do more for it.And I was just sure there would be a price drop on the ps3.

@jadekorri.. Most people watch cat video on youtube, they don't watch trailer.

But I think Sony needs to spend money on marketing still. It is a step before people go to youtube to watch the trailer. M$ and Apple are doing an excellent job in marketing. Sony has been lacking this generation...

So not true. Demons Souls was successful, but sold no where near what heavily marketed games sell. The only mistake you are making is that you assume everyone is as aware of the game industry as you are. Take a look outside, the majority of people are dense, and slow. They need the TV box spreading the truth to their earballs. :)

Sony is in trouble because they have a lot of products that no one hears about, you need exposure if you want things to sell. You can't just make games etc and expect them to sell just because they are quality items, if no ones heard of it it wont sell! Vita is a fantastic product, but ask the average joe, i guarantee 80% will say "what is that?"

I care about Sony as a business because I am a gamer, and without Sony this industry would hardly interest me. Believe it or not, the company is not in good shape.

No Jadjedi, it doesn't have to be a "big gun" to be considered an "exclusive". I don't know why you would use that kind of logic.

An exclusive is ANY GAME by ANY DEVELOPER that is ONLY on that particular platform.

It doesn't matter if Fable Journey is the best game in the world or the worst game in the world. It's got NOTHING to do about reception of the game. The game is EXCLUSIVE. Period.

I agree that Fable has been going downhill. I didn't care much for Fable 3 or Fable Hero's (XBLA) but that is besides the point. Fable Journey is STILL an exclusive game. Just like Wonderbook and sorcery are exclusive to the PS3. People may say they suck, but it doesn't matter what they say, it's still an exclusive game for that system.

"We don't count games like Wonderbook or Sorcery and put them in our lists. We're not that desperate like you guys."

Who is this "WE"? Sony sure as heck does. If Sony considers them as exclusives why wouldn't you? Are you saying Sony is wrong to count those games as exclusives?

Maybe in your bubble of a world the definition of "exclusive" differs from what the actual meaning of it is. Maybe you should call up Websters Dictionary and advise them that the have the word "exclusive" wrong and that it should be "Exclusives only matter if it's a certain product or service that only ShinMaster likes."

It's true many gamers don't like halo, but there are lots of fans. Look at how many people buy call of duty compare its sells with that of halo. Halo is a quality game though, where I'm from though it gets much hate but I think there are more gamers who like rpg style games better where I live.

Those plus god of war. Now that bayonetta is a nintendo game xbox has no game that can compete with god of war or bayonetta. Left in the cold lol. They will need to find a third party to leech off again because new IP's cost them more money.

Is MS bring you new Ip's at the end of this gen to maximize your console investment? We both know the answer but but your fanboism makes you not care.

Nintnedo(who actually brought bayonetta from the dead)Sony & Valve are the only real gaming companies.

MS? Their best game has 1) perks 2) only some of the original devs 3) is a sequel = story of Modern Warfare 3.

"According to the company(Microsoft), owners now spend more time watching TV and listening to music through the console than playing games with it." http://www.tomsguide.com/us...

"Probably the same game every Rare fan wants to see and that’s KI3 (Killer Instinct 3). We all wanted to make KI3, but Microsoft [was] more interested in broadening their demographic than making another fighting game. So it never got made, I doubt it ever will." - Rare http://www.cinemablend.com/... nuff said

"That's why Call Of Duty beats every single game this gen when it comes to quality and not many people hate it. /s"

I really hate this arguement, the CoD quality is there. The multiplayer, the community the production value is high. The game beats all others because it IS a fun game, and only the internet ragers hate it so your /s is unjustified.

"Being bombarded with Advertisements definitely doesn't have anything to do with it. /s"

Nope it doesn't, CoD is a household name now.

"Also that movie Avatar, more people like that movie than ANY OTHER MOVIE!!!!!! /s "

In this gen the so called "gamers" has no taste at all, most of them get what others or friends get that's why the units solds on some games are so high, it doesn't matter how good or bad a game is if the game is a popular one ( and probably an overrated one too) then the so called "gamers" are going to the store to get a copy, it's not about them liking a game, they just want to be fashionable, sadly -.-"

"I really hate this arguement, the CoD quality is there. The multiplayer, the community the production value is high. The game beats all others because it IS a fun game, and only the internet ragers hate it so your /s is unjustified."

You are mistaken buddy. The COD quality WAS there, not anymore. No one can argue against the fact that the series has gone downhill ever since MW2 came out. You trying to justify the quality in Call of Duty is laughable. Only reason why it appeals to so many is because it's easy to pick up. No skills or commitment required.

"Nope it doesn't, CoD is a household name now."

Maybe so. But if you give the same amount of advertisement to COD as say, an idie title (If they even get any LMAO). Do you really think it would sell as much copies as it does now? Not even close. You are delusional if you think so.

"No idea what this refers too."

You don't know the movie Avatar? The one that ended up being pretty mediocre (Like COD) but surpassed even Titanic in revenue? You must live under a rock bro. Well anyways, it was just an example.

People seem to forget the great year sony has had in it's very profitable movie's, music, and imaging divisions.

Sony has 007 coming out this nov. while resident evil retribution recently came out.

Sony will soon be reporting spiderman's and mib3's profits and they seem to be high.

They have some very good camera's coming out soon this nov.- dec.

This holiday sony will more than likely to make a good amount of money with their playstation brand.

Sony needs to let go of their loss making vaio and bravia brands and invest in better mobile phones.

Sony's issue with its loss making tv division is the damn yen so it can't afford to go cost to cost with samsung or lg unfortunately. Hopefully kaz is right when he says that they will start profiting from the tv division next year.

you seem to have some great ideas there, its true Sony need to make less TVs, their 2011/12 range got pretty bad reviews and they are just recently gaining traction again. The sub divisions that don't make are hardware have been great.

@ Pekolie- This is actually coming from an PlanetXbox360 editor, they recently created that site, but they're for the most part an Xbox site, look at the top right of the site & look at the author's info, you'll see it clearly says PlanetXbox360, so Gribble has a point.

Yeah been seeing a lot of hate on that WiiU personally I think it looks freaking awesome as a gamer I'm excited, that controller it has looks like it could add something interesting into gaming like imagine battlefield 4 and you had to diffuse a bomb or something like that would be awesome or if you were in fighter jet you could have switches you could flick. Now that would be awesome :P but yeah went of on a bit of a tangent there but I do see a lot of doom speak :P

But seriously, no one notices the people posting these "opinion" articles? It's funny that no one realizes they do this to get certain members on this site easily agitated. I already see the same offenders reacting and trying to spin.

There's no need too, get to these opinion pieces before they hit and press the FAIL button. Nothing can be posted without community approval.